A Legacy in Song: Melissa Errico’s Journey Through Her Family’s Military Past
Imagine arriving in a new country — a place with unfamiliar words, customs, and faces. Now imagine that, as your family steps into this new life, your father collapses and dies in the customs house. That’s how Rose’s American story began — a young girl on the edge of her teenage years, suddenly forced to grow up.
With courage beyond her years, Rose and her sister found work at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, sewing uniforms for men bound for the Great War — the “war to end all wars.” Each stitch she made was a quiet act of devotion to her new homeland. Years later, she traded her needle for the spotlight, becoming a Ziegfeld Follies Girl — one of the dazzling dancers, actresses, and singers who brought Broadway to life while celebrating American ideals through music and movement.
That same Rose would one day become the great-grandmother of Melissa Errico — the acclaimed Tony-Award nominated Broadway singer, actress, recording artist, and writer — who is now tracing her family’s military and artistic heritage through her own storytelling.
“During the war, the YMCA gave out an AEF songbook, and every soldier made room in his pack for it,” Errico explained. “It’s a pocket-sized book, not very heavy. American doughboys had to carry up to 60 pounds — almost half their body weight. And in that 60-pound bag was a soldier songbook, and I have one. I’d say 95% of my songs are replicated from that book. The Follies had incorporated patriotic themes during the war — their songs, the dances, the sketches — they celebrated American ideals and the U.S. military.”
The Power of Connection
As Errico explored this history, her family’s long-silent stories began to resurface. Her mother, for instance, unearthed a World War I sword from a forgotten closet — a relic of her grandfather’s best friend, who died in his arms after a shell exploded in their trench.
Her mother also recalled weeping on the stairs when her father left to enlist in World War II — and the relief she felt when he was deemed too old to serve. “He was such a proud American,” Errico said. “These Italians were so proud!”
Her father, a doctor, was drafted into the Air Force during the Vietnam War. Yet it wasn’t until Errico began creating the Story of A Rose musical to share the First World War with our generation, that he opened up about his time in Saigon — and the years that followed. What began as research soon became something deeper: a process of healing and rediscovery.
From long-buried memories to unspoken fears, her family’s stories began to intertwine — binding generations through the shared language of service, sacrifice, and song.
“I feel that I’m using the language that I understand — music and theater — to suddenly make the star of the show the military,” Errico reflected. “What I understand is the world I’m going to sing through. But in the end, I’m gonna understand — finally — them.”
Daniel Dayton, Founder and Chair, Emeritus of The Doughboy Foundation and Producer of, The Story of a Rose: A Musical Reverie on The Great War, summed up the spirit at its heart:
“The Story of A Rose celebrates the altruism of Americans of 100 years ago — their willingness to serve wherever their country asked them to serve, in honor of peace and liberty, without any special compensation,” he said. “They did it because it was the right thing to do. That’s who we were … that’s who we were as a nation."